The University of Alabama Press

The University of Alabama Press was founded in the fall of 1945 with J. B. McMillan as founding director . The Press’s first work was Roscoe Martin’s New Horizons in Public Administration, which appeared in February 1946. In 1964, the Press joined the American Association of University Presses.

Browse Results For:

The University of Alabama Press

Anthropology and the Politics of Representation examines the inherently problematic nature of representation and description of living people, specifically in ethnography and more generally in anthropological work as a whole.

In Anthropology and the Politics of Representation volume editor Gabriela Vargas-Cetina brings together a group of international scholars who, through their fieldwork experiences, reflect on the epistemological, political, and personal implications of their own work. To do so, they focus on such topics as ethnography, anthropologists’ engagement in identity politics, representational practices, the contexts of anthropological research and work, and the effects of personal choices regarding self-involvement in local causes that may extend beyond purely ethnographic goals.

Such reflections raise a number of ethnographic questions: What are ethnographic goals? Who sets the agenda for ethnographic writing? How does fieldwork change the anthropologist’s identity? Do ethnography and ethnographers have an impact on local lives and self-representation? How do anthropologists balance longheld respect for cultural diversity with advocacy for local people? How does an author choose what to say and write, and what not to disclose? Should anthropologists support causes that may require going against their informed knowledge of local lives?

This volume, originally published in 1922, constitutes the most complete summary of anthropological information on Florida up until that point. Not only does it consider all previous research on Florida archaeology, physical anthropology, and aboriginal history, it also contains Hrdlicka’s analysis of every human bone from Florida that he could find in collections. He made remarkably accurate observations about the general physical types of prehistoric Florida Indians and how they compared to native peoples of surrounding regions.

Written by Charles C. Jones and edited with an introduciton by Frank T. Schnell

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication

This reissue of Charles Jones's classic investigations of the Mound Builders will be an invaluable resource for archaeologists today.

Long a classic of southeastern archaeology, Charles Jones'sAntiquities of the Southern Indians was a groundbreaking work that linked historic tribes with prehistoric "antiquities." Published in 1873, it predated the work of Cyrus Thomas and Clarence Moore and remains a rich resource for modern scholars.

Jones was a pioneer of archaeology who not only excavated important sites but also related his findings to other sites, to contemporary Indians, and to artifacts from other areas. His work covers all of the southeastern states, from Virginia to Louisiana, and is noted for its insights into the De Soto expedition and the history of the Creek Indians.

Best known for refuting the popular myth of the Mound Builders, Jones proposed a connection between living Native Americans of the 1800s and the prehistoric peoples who had created the Southeast's large earthen mounds. His early research and culture comparisons led to the eventual demise of the Mound Builder myth.

For this reissue of Jones's book, a new introduction by Frank Schnell places Jones's work in the context of his times and relates it to current research in the Southeast. An engagingly written work enhanced by numerous maps and engravings, Antiquities of the Southern Indians will serve today's scholars and fascinate all readers interested in the region's prehistory.

Frank T. Schnell Jr. is an Archaeologist and Historian at the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia.

Written by Sigvald Linne, foreword by Staffan Brunius and introduction by George

The field data and archaeological analysis of the first controlled excavations of the vast "City of the Gods" in central Mexico.

In 1932, the Ethnographical Museum of Sweden sent an archaeological expedition to Mexico under the direction of Sigvald Linné to determine the full extent of this ancient Teotihuacan occupation and to collect exhibit-quality artifacts. Of an estimated 2000-plus residential compounds at Teotihuacan, only 20 apartmentlike structures were excavated at the time. Yet Linné's work revealed residential patterns that have been confirmed later in other locations. Some of the curated objects from the Valley of Mexico and the adjacent state of Puebla are among the most rare and unique artifacts yet found. Another important aspect of this research was that, with the aid of the Museum of Natural History in Washington, Linné's team conducted ethnographic interviews with remnant native Mexican peoples whose culture had not been entirely destroyed by the Conquest, thereby collecting and preserving valuable information for later research.

Sigvald Linné was Professor of Ethnography at the University of Stockholm and Director of the Swedish National Museum of Ethnography until 1969. He published several other books, including The Technique of South American Ceramics. Staffan Brunius is Curator of the Americas at the National Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. George L. Cowgillis Professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University and coeditor of The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations.

Written by David DeJarnette and edited by Historic Chattahoochee Commission

David L. DeJarnette, the founder of scientific archaeology in the state of Alabama, reports on archaeological surveys and excavations undertaken in the Chattahoochee River Valley between 1947 and 1962. The three contributors, Wesley R. Hurt, Edward B. Kurjack, and Fred Lamar Pearson Jr., each made signal contributions to the archaeology of the southeastern states. With their mentor, David L. DeJarnette, they worked out a viable cultural chronology of the region from the earliest Paleoindian and Archaic foragers to the period of early European-Indian contact. They excavated key sites, including the Woodland period Shorter Mound, the protohistoric Abercrombie village, and Spanish Fort Apalachicola, in addition to a number of important Creek Indian town sites of the eighteenth century. All are here, illustrated abundantly by site photographs, maps, and of course, the artifacts recovered from these remarkable investigations.

Written by Philip Phillips, James A. Ford, James B. Griffin, with contributions

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication

A classic work by three important scholars who document prehistoric human occupation along the lower reaches of the continent's largest river.

The Lower Mississippi Survey was initiated in 1939 as a joint undertaking of three institutions: the School of Geology at Louisiana State University, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, and the Peabody Museum at Harvard. Fieldwork began in 1940 but was halted during the war years. When fieldwork resumed in 1946, James Ford had joined the American Museum of Natural History, which assumed cosponsorship from LSU. The purpose of the Lower Mississippi Survey (LMS)—a term used to identify both the fieldwork and the resultant volume—was to investigate the northern two-thirds of the alluvial valley of the lower Mississippi River, roughly from the mouth of the Ohio River to Vicksburg. This area covers about 350 miles and had been long regarded as one of the principal hot spots in eastern North American archaeology.

Phillips, Ford, and Griffin surveyed over 12,000 square miles, identified 382 archaeological sites, and analyzed over 350,000 potsherds in order to define ceramic typologies and establish a number of cultural periods. The commitment of these scholars to developing a coherent understanding of the archaeology of the area, as well as their mutual respect for one another, enabled the publication of what is now commonly considered the bible of southeastern archaeology. Originally published in 1951 as volume 25 of the Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, this work has been long out of print.

Because Stephen Williams served for 35 years as director of the LMS at Harvard, succeeding Phillips, and was closely associated with the authors during their lifetimes, his new introduction offers a broad overview of the work's influence and value, placing it in a contemporary context.

"Meant for the expert and informed layman, it sets a standard for archaeological studies."—Journal of the West

"One of the important classics in the field. . . Incredibly influential over the decades. . . . Enhancing this timeless volume, the new edition contains four very useful indexes (general, site descriptors, pottery descriptors, and other artifacts). . . .This book should not be an old tome gathering dust on the shelf, but a resource in constant use for reference and inspiration. Students of archaeology should read it as an example of one of the first great syntheses. Nobody should conduct archaeological research in the Southeast without knowing it."—Journal of Alabama Archaeology

"For anyone who has tried long and hard to find a copy of the original, this reprinted volume is a godsend. . . . To say that this 1951 study is a classic is a major understatement. Not only did the volume set the foundation for much of the research conducted within the LMV since that time, it had a significant imapct upon how that research was (and still is) conducted. Names of many of the periods, cultures, and pottery types (even some pottery varieties) that today are commonly employed across the region owe their genesis to PF&G. . . . No archaeologist working in the LMV, and certainly none within the state of Mississippi, should be without a copy. . . . There is no excuse not to have this study now that it is available again at a reasonable price. If you do not yet have a copy, go get one now! You will be very glad that you did."—Mississippi Archaeology

Edited by M. Jay Stottman, with contributions from Jodi A. Barnes, Robert Chides

Could archaeologists benefit contemporary cultures and be a factor in solving world problems? Can archaeologists help individuals? Can archaeologists change the world? These questions form the root of “archaeology activism” or “activist archaeology”: using archaeology to advocate for and affect change in contemporary communities.

Archaeologists currently change the world through the products of their archaeological research that contribute to our collective historical and cultural knowledge. Their work helps to shape and reshape our perceptions of the past and our understanding of written history. Archaeologists affect contemporary communities through the consequences of their work as they become embroiled in controversies over negotiating the past and the present with native peoples. Beyond the obvious economic contributions to local communities caused by heritage tourism established on the research of archaeologists at cultural sites, archaeologists have begun to use the process of their work as a means to benefit the public and even advocate for communities.

In this volume, Stottman and his colleagues examine the various ways in which archaeologists can and do use their research to forge a partnership with the past and guide the ongoing dialogue between the archaeological record and the various contemporary stakeholders. They draw inspiration and guidance from applied anthropology, social history, public history, heritage studies, museum studies, historic preservation, philosophy, and education to develop an activist approach to archaeology—theoretically, methodologically, and ethically.

Addressing the use of geoinformatics in Caribbean archaeology, this volume is based on case studies drawn from specific island territories, namely, Barbados, St. John, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Nevis, St. Eustatius, and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as inter-island interaction and landscape conceptualization in the Caribbean region. Geoinformatics is especially critical within the Caribbean where site destruction is intense due to storm surges, hurricanes, ocean and riverine erosion, urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture, as well as commercial development along the very waterfronts that were home to many prehistoric peoples. By demonstrating that the region is fertile ground for the application of geoinformatics in archaeology, this volume places a well-needed scholarly spotlight on the Caribbean.

100 years of archaeological excavations at an important American landmark.

The Shiloh Indian Mounds archaeological site, a National Historic Landmark, is a late prehistoric community within the boundaries of the Shiloh National Military Park on the banks of the Tennessee River, where one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War was fought in April 1862. Dating between AD 1000 and 1450, the archaeological site includes at least eight mounds and more than 100 houses. It is unique in that the land has never been plowed, so visitors can walk around the area and find the collapsed remains of 800-year-old houses and the 900-meter-long palisade with bastions that protected the village in prehistoric times. Although its location within a National Park boundary has protected the area from the recent ravages of man, river bank erosion began to undermine the site in the 1970s. In the mid-1990s, Paul Welch began a four-year investigation culminating in a comprehensive report to the National Park Service on the Shiloh Indian Mounds.

These published findings confirm that the Shiloh site was one of at least fourteen Mississippian mound sites located within a 50 km area and that Shiloh was abandoned in approximately AD 1450. It also establishes other parameters for the Shiloh archaeological phase. This current volume is intended to make information about the first 100 years of excavations at the Shiloh site available to the archaeological community.

Paul D. Welch is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Southern Illionois University, Carbondale, and is the authro of Moundville's Economy.

Written by David G. Anderson and Steven D. Smith, with contributions from Joseph

Fort Polk Military Reservation encompasses approximately 139,000 acres in western Louisiana 40 miles southwest of Alexandria. As a result of federal mandates for cultural resource investigation, more archaeological work has been undertaken there, beginning in the 1970s, than has occurred at any other comparably sized area in Louisiana or at most other localities in the southeastern United States. The extensive program of survey, excavation, testing, and large-scale data and artifact recovery, as well as historic and archival research, has yielded a massive amount of information. While superbly curated by the U.S. Army, the material has been difficult to examine and comprehend in its totality.

With this volume, Anderson and Smith collate and synthesize all the information into a comprehensive whole. Included are previous investigations, an overview of local environmental conditions, base military history and architecture, and the prehistoric and historic cultural sequence. An analysis of location, environmental, and assemblage data employing a sample of more than 2,800 sites and isolated finds was used to develop a predictive model that identifies areas where significant cultural resources are likely to occur. Developed in 1995, this model has already proven to be highly accurate and easy to use.

Archaeology, History, and Predictive Modeling will allow scholars to more easily examine the record of human activity over the past 13,000 or more years in this part of western Louisiana and adjacent portions of east Texas. It will be useful to southeastern archaeologists and anthropologists, both professional and amateur.

David G. Anderson is an archaeologist with the National Park Service's Southeast Archeological Center in Tallahassee, Florida, and coeditor of The Woodland Southeast.Steven D. Smith is with SCIAA in Columbia, South Carolina. J.W. Joseph and Mary Beth Reed are with New South Associates in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Welcome to Project MUSE

Use the simple Search box at the top of the page or the Advanced Search linked from the top of the page to find book and journal content. Refine results with the filtering options on the left side of the Advanced Search page or on your search results page. Click the Browse box to see a selection of books and journals by: Research Area, Titles A-Z, Publisher, Books only, or Journals only.